Your high-trust
workforce strategy advisor.
We believe that creating a future-proof workforce strategy requires a shift away from traditional resource-based ways of managing people to a systems approach to workforce capability management - at Cello we simplify the complex and partner with you to enable this.
Find out more
67% of well formulated business strategies fail or underperform due to execution breakdown
Roughly 50% of organisations explicitly cite capability, talent shortages, and workforce readiness gaps as the single biggest internal obstacle to achieving their strategic goals
It's time to do things a better way, starting now.
Leadership teams are facing into key risks.
Each one is a workforce problem that becomes a strategy delivery risk
This is where we can help!
Start a conversation →Demand for critical skills (digital, data, systems engineering, AI, cyber, commercial) is outpacing supply, while legacy roles become obsolete faster than organisations can adapt.
Cello helps you prioritise those skills that matter most, creating innovative resourcing and development strategies that increase attraction, enhance employee engagement and secure vital capabilities in time.
Recruiting is already running hot; it's expensive, often late and with variable quality. Talent risk is one of if not the greatest threat to strategy or programme delivery.
Cello helps design and implement strategic workforce planning that provides insights and actionable workforce strategies that solve specific strategic challenges.
Executives frequently approve new growth or technology models assuming the right talent configuration will naturally emerge or can be hired instantly.
Cello helps create a common language for capability, determining your capability baseline and forecasted trends over time, highlighting internal and labour market capability risks and opportunities.
Our Vision
We believe that workforce capability planning creates gamechanging benefits for organisations, HR functions and employees alike and we are determined to help you achieve this.
Workforce Capability planning requires systems thinking and workforce transformation - a whole business priority, not just another HR transformation. We help bring execs together to create enhanced planning and governance forums, supporting HR functions to generate decision and prioritisation insights that enable quicker, better and lower risk strategy execution.
Our Mission
To place people at the heart of organisational strategy, planning and performance.
We support Execs to deliver their business strategy priorities through the creation of workforce insights and strategies. We develop HR functions to become a vital strategic asset to business partners: implementing strategic capability and workforce planning. We coach leaders to maximise talent potential: of those they have the privilege to lead and their own.
Partnering with integrity
Personal Partnership
You work directly with an experienced senior adviser who understands your organisation, earns trust quickly and stays close throughout.
Bespoke by Design
Every solution is shaped around your strategy, workforce and context, not repackaged from a standard consultancy playbook.
Clarity from Complexity
Cello turns fragmented workforce data and difficult organisational questions into clear insights, confident decisions and practical priorities.
Impact Integrity
The focus is on measurable organisational outcomes and work that can be implemented, not impressive presentations that gather dust.
Capability that Lasts
Cello works alongside your people, transferring knowledge and building internal capability so the benefits continue long after the engagement ends.
A strategic advisory service based on deep expertise
Cello is built on 20+ years of people and HR function leadership and strategic talent and capability planning. Our founder developed expertise through three key career journeys:
A career as an Army Officer
Managing talent and capability in high risk, strategic operational and constrained contexts.
Organisational strategy, talent and workforce transformation consulting
Ex Korn Ferry; including HR transformations, organisation design and development, talent strategy, competency science and SWP implementation.
HR senior leadership roles
Acting CPO and HR Strategic Advisor to OECD Secretary General, Head of HR and Global Head of SWP in engineering and manufacturing organisations.
Cello supports clients across sectors built on specific expertise in Defence, Central Government, International Organisations, Nuclear, Engineering, Pharma, Professional Services and Manufacturing organisations.
Maximising business & people performance and potential
Chris Woodward is a strategic HR leader, workforce transformation consultant, and executive coach with over twenty years innovating capability, talent, HR and workforce management practice across large, complex and often regulated organisations. Chris is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD and Chartered Management Institutes with an Exec MBA and Masters in International HRM - combining academic rigour with hands on experience in consulting and internal HR leadership roles. Chris was the former Strategic Advisor (HR) for the OECD Secretary General and is a thought leader who is often asked to speak on podcasts and at events.
Chris started his career as a British Army Officer. In this time he developed capability planning and leadership expertise through strategic task force, operational and diplomatic missions. In his last role in the Army, Chris established the External Placement Programme (an innovative and popular initiative that developed skills via strategic secondments), earning him a CEO commendation.
Through consultancy and inhouse senior HR leadership positions, Chris has developed a track record of designing HR and workforce transformations that work.
Through Cello, Chris helps:
What will your future workforce look like?
And what will it be doing that's different from what it does today? Our diagnostics help you uncover what you need to do to create your own workforce capability insights and plans. Have a look at our quick diagnostic here or get in touch.
Chris is a genuine strategic thinker, skilled in leveraging technology and data to create comprehensive 10-year workforce plans. At Babcock, he brought people together, enhancing and maturing the talent lifecycle.
Thinking on workforce strategy, capability planning and the future of work.
Not sure where your biggest workforce risk is?
Start with a conversation. No pitch, just a clear-eyed look at whether your organisation has the capability it needs to deliver its strategy.
Let's start a conversationThe Cello Newsletter provides you with practical thinking for people and business leaders, now and again, never too often.
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